


Hostile Takeover

by Fanforthefics (StormDancer)



Series: Hockey Tumblr Oneshots [21]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-26 15:45:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16684474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/Fanforthefics
Summary: Jamie takes the job, despite the fact that people who look at him see big and slow and stupid. He takes the job because people who look at him see big and slow and stupid.He might even be big and slow and stupid. But he also gets the job done, and that’s what matters now.





	Hostile Takeover

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: a kiss...in danger
> 
> Don't know, don't own, etc.

“Don’t go.” 

“Come on, Ty. You know I have to.” Jamie smiles at Tyler, who has his arms crossed over his chest and is scowling. It’s not a natural look on him. “It’s an assignment.” 

“And you could turn it down. It’s–” Tyler swallows. “Jamie, you’d be going into the Home Office.” 

Jamie nods. He knows. “You–” Tyler shakes his head. He looks frantic, now, in a way Jamie hasn’t seen him since he came to their little pocket of resistance, years ago, when he stuck close to Jamie like if he went farther he might get lost. But it’s not years ago, and Tyler stands on his own now. Has for years. He doesn’t need Jamie anymore. If he ever did. “People don’t always come back, from the Home Office.” 

Jamie knows that, too. “I know. I’ve talked with Jordie. He knows–” Jamie’s heart is beating fast. “He knows what to do. If I–” He can’t say it. 

“He knows?” Tyler demands, and now he’s mad, his cheeks flushed, his eyes wild. He takes a step forward, so Jamie has to move back against the cool metal of the wall so Tyler doesn’t run into him. “ _He_ knows?” 

Jamie’s not really sure why Tyler’s this mad. “Yeah. I mean, he’ll get, like, word to mom.” Jamie closes his eyes for a second. Doesn’t think about who won’t need word gotten to them. Opens his eyes. Tyler is watching him, looking furious and understanding all at once. “If I do this, we’ll have a mole. We’ll have real information.” He can barely get the next words out, but he has to. “We’ll have a chance, Segs. To bring down the Company.” 

“I know!” Tyler snaps back. “I know, I just–” he runs a hand through his hair. Takes another step closer. “I know,” he repeats, and lets his head drop onto Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie can’t help it–he brings his hand up, rests it on the back of Tyler’s neck. Tries to memorize this moment. “It shouldn’t have to be you.” He pauses, then adds, almost too quiet for Jamie to hear. “I’m not going to lose you.” 

* * *

Jamie takes the job, despite the fact that people who look at him see big and slow and stupid. He takes the job  _because_ people who look at him see big and slow and stupid. 

He might even be big and slow and stupid. But he also gets the job done, and that’s what matters now. 

It helps, anyway. That the people around him–the bureaucrats who scurry through the halls, the Managers in their sharp suit with their hungry eyes, the Executives with their jovial smiles and dead gaze–don’t look past big and dumb and stupid. He won’t last, Jamie hears the whispers. He’s harmless. Manipulable. A tool to use and then discard, when it means promotion. 

It’s easy to play that role. Jamie smiles blankly, looks at them with what Ty–people, back at base–call his cow eye stare, and lets himself sink back into the person he was as a kid–quiet and slow and shy, more likely to jump at someone talking to him then to quip back, his shoulders curled in and his head ducked so he looks smaller. It’s easier than he thought, to pull on the role. To become that person. 

And when he is–no one looks at him. No one takes a second glance, other than to try to make him do their work. Why would they? Their attention is fixed on the people who are rising with them, who they can climb over to get their pound of flesh. Not bumbling Jack Benson, who’s not worth the energy to crush. Not Jack Benny, who takes their work with a mumble and a nod, and hands it back, done. Done, and copied, and smuggled away; done and used to get into other offices. To reach the Managers, once, when he had to deliver something. 

Jamie gets back to his room at 7. Some of the other bureaucrats at his level work late into the night, but that’s what you do if you want promotion. Some others also leave early, to drink or fuck in the hidden rooms that the Company pretends not to know about, but monitors closely. But that’s what you do if you’re looking to make friends, to find favors. That’s not for Jack Benson either. 

Instead, Jamie goes back to his room, in the residential wing of the Office. He has a long night ahead of him, of compiling what he got today, of putting it together than secreting it into the hideaway he’d made. He–

He opens the door, and someone’s inside. 

Jamie twitches forward, his first instinct to move, to fight–but room searches happen, he’s heard. Maybe that’s what this is. “Hello?” he says, pitching his voice low. “Is someone in there?” 

The figure in the shadows shifts, and–Jamie would know that outline anywhere. 

He shuts the door, firm, then flicks on the light, and “Tyler?” 

“Is someone there?” Tyler echoes, mocking, “You’re losing your edge.” 

Tyler’s there. Tyler, in all black with a beanie pulled over his hair and bright eyes and a grin brighter than all the fluorescent lights of the Office. “Segs?” Jamie says again. He can’t believe it. He didn’t think–he knew a contact would come, but he’d thought it would be Bish, maybe, who’s better at sneaking than his height would predict, or one of the new kids, who don’t know as much. Not Tyler. 

“Benny,” Tyler says, and then Jamie’s moving because he can’t help it. He grabs Tyler, pulls him into a hug. Tyler throws himself into it, grabs onto Jamie’s shirt and holds him tight. “Fuck, Benny. You’re okay.” 

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Jamie lets him go. He can feel himself straightening, under Tyler’s gaze. Remembering how to be Jamie Benn, resistance captain. “I’m–it’s fine.” 

“You’re sure?” Tyler hasn’t stopped looking at Jamie, like he could see beneath Jamie’s cloths to any injuries beneath. Jamie’s cheeks flush, at that thought. 

Then he pushes that down. “Yeah, I think I’d know if I was getting hurt,” he throws back at Tyler, and it feels like breathing, having a personality again. “Are you okay? Don’t tell me anything, but–are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. We’re all fine. Jordie sends his love. Your mom too.” 

That’s like breathing too. “Tyler,” Jamie says, and he’s thinking now, about what it might mean to send him. “What are you doing here? Have there been–” 

“Someone had to go, and I figured it might as well be me,” Tyler says, grinning like it’s a joke, if Jamie didn’t know him better than that. Then he bites his lip, and for a second all his smiles and bravado drops away as he looks at Jamie. “And I told you, they aren’t–I wanted to make sure.” 

Jamie opens his mouth to respond, but then Tyler’s hurrying on. He doesn’t like to be open like that, Jamie knows. None of them do, but Tyler’s emotions always lie to close to his sleeve, in a way that makes him particularly vulnerable. “Anyway. You got it?” 

“Here.” Jamie kneels down to thee loose floorboard, pries it open to hand Tyler the disc. He rolls his eyes at Tyler’s laughter at his hidey-hole. “Hey, it’s a classic for a reason.” 

“Okay, bro,” Tyler retorts as he takes the disc, clearly still laughing at Jamie. It makes Jamie smile too. He’s almost forgotten how, he thinks, here in the Office. “Whatever you say.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“Tsk tsk, Benny. They didn’t teach you manners in the Office?” 

“Only for Managers, and you don’t look like one of them.” 

Tyler knocks on the nearest surface, which is a sleek glass table. “Thank fucking god.” He pauses, looks at Jamie again, then at his watch. “Okay. I should–” 

“Don’t.” It comes out before Jamie can think about it. He wants–he just wants to be a person, for a little while longer. To be the Jamie Tyler sees. “Just, can you stay? For a little.” 

Tyler’s breath comes in fast and loud, but he shakes his head. “Klinger can only loop the cameras for a little while. I’ve got to go.” 

Right, or else Tyler will be in danger, and that’s unacceptable. Right. Jamie’s fine. He can do this. “Okay. Yeah. For sure.” 

“I–Jamie.” Tyler tugs him into a hug again. Jamie breathes in the scent of him. “I’ll be back,” Tyler promises, fierce and sure. “I’ll be back for you.” 

He probably won’t get the assignment again, Jamie knows. And Jamie can’t know when anyone’ll come. Can’t know anything. He’s already a huge risk, being here with what he already knows. 

Jamie lets him go. “Be safe,” he tells him, and Tyler’s face does a  _thing_ that loos like pain. 

“I’ve got to go,” he says again. And then he does, out the window and into thee night. 

Jamie stares at the window, until Tyler must be far, far away. Until there’s no one in the room but Jack Benson. 

He takes a breath. Then sits down at his computer, and starts to work. 

* * *

It’s three weeks, but Tyler comes back. He comes in the night again, for a moment, and in that moment–in that moment, Jamie is Jamie again, is a person. Is Jordie’s brother and his mother’s son and the person Tyler believes in. He can laugh and joke and, as always when he looks at Tyler, just–feel. 

The rest of the time–the rest of the time, Jack Benson works. He does his job. He lives and breathes the Company, and does not think of anything else. He doesn’t meet the Managers’ eyes if he passes them in the hallways, avoids the Executives all together–not that it’s hard, they don’t come to the bureaucrats wing, ever. One bureaucrat, Kristen, likes to brag that she’s had a meeting with an Executive, but they all know it’s bullshit. Jamie’s waiting to see the lie used to knock her out. He can see it starting already. He doesn’t stop it. 

He waits. He waits, and listens, and lives his life from one of Tyler’s visits to the next. 

* * *

It’s been six months, when Jamie comes to his room, and instead of Tyler waiting for him, it’s Bish. 

Jamie freezes. “Is he–” 

“Segs is fine. A little beat up, there was an incident.” Bish shrugs, easy as always. Jamie’s breath feels like it’s rattling in his chest. Usually, when Tyler’s here, it’s like he can breathe. It’s great to see Bish, but it’s not the same. “He got everyone out, though.” Jamie’s lips quirk at that. Of course he did. “Then Rads had to sit on him to make him not come today.” Bish smiles a little, like at a funny memory. “And then remind him that he’d be no use to you if he got hurt on his way in.”

“He better not,” Jamie hisses out. “Tell him I said so.” Tyler can’t get hurt. 

“Oh I will.” Ben shakes his head. “Anyway. The goods?” 

Jamie takes out the latest disc, hands it to Bish, who tucks it away. Jamie adds, as he gets ready to go, “Tell me–just, whoever comes next time, can they make sure to have an update on Segs?” 

Bish pauses, tilts his head like he’s confused. “I’m pretty sure Segs will be here next time.” 

“But if he’s hurt–” 

Bish looks at him, and it seems almost pitying. “You did hear me when I said Rads had to sit on him to keep him to coming here from an infirmary bed, right? Tyler’s been pitching fits to make sure he gets to come see you. Not that he needs to.” Bish quirks a smile. “It’s better for everyone within the blast radius, that he checks in on you.” 

“Oh.” Jamie doesn’t know what to say. He knows he’s been living for Tyler’s visits, that even before this Tyler was–more, that he needed Tyler–but it never occurred to him that Tyler might need him too. 

“Yeah, oh.” Bish is still giving him that look. “I’ll tell him you said hi, and to behave.” 

“I do say that.” 

“And that you looked okay,” Bish goes on. That one’s slower. “Are you okay, Cap? You look–” he trails off, then finishes. “Smaller.” 

Jamie feels smaller, all thee time. “I’m fine,” he says, and Bish nods. And goes. 

* * *

Jamie looks for any indication of what Bish said, next time Tyler shows up–which is the next time anyone shows up. Tyler’s Tyler, all laugher and jokes and quicksilver charm. If there’s more wildness in him, Jamie doesn’t see it. But maybe he’s not looking too hard. Maybe he needs this, needs Tyler, and can’t look for more. 

* * *

Nine months in, and a month since Tyler’s last visit. They’ve usually been about every three weeks. A month isn’t too long, Jamie tells himself. He could still show up. 

But he doesn’t the next day, or the next. Jack’s hand runs over thee keyboard, fills out the forms. Does his job. Signs his timesheets. Files. HIs shoulders curl in. He keeps his head down. Kristen’s gone, now. Lex got promoted. Jack doubts that’s a coincidence. He’s trying not to think about it. Sometimes, when people are gone, they’ve just been demoted to a Branch Office. Sometimes they’re fired. Jamie’s seen the remnants of that. 

“Benson!” comes a yell from the Manager’s office, and Jack jerks up. Everyone’s looking at him, sadistically gleeful or maybe envious, depending on if they think he’s more likely to be chastised or be rewarded. “My office. Now.” 

Jack gets up. Goes to the Manager’s office. He’s been in it before, once or twice. Seen his Manager, a dark haired woman with teeth like a shark and a caustic way with words. 

She looks up from her computer, now. “Go to office 2178,” she orders, sharp. Jack’s jaw drops. 

“That’s Executive suites,” he says, slow. 

“I noticed,” she drawls back. “Go.” 

Jack goes. The others watch his back on the way out, their eyes narrowed. 

He gets out of the elevator on the 21st floor, to a hall of shining chrome and fully glass walls. He’s never been this high up before. He can’t help imagine what it would bee like to fall from here. But if they do know–it wouldn’t be like that. Too public. He’d just–disappear. And no one would know. He doesn’t even know if Tyler will come to wait for him, wait and wait until it’s clear he’s not coming. If Jordie’s out there to tell his mom the Company’s swallowed another child. 

He follows the signs to office 2178. Knocks. 

“Hello?” comes a voice, smooth as silk. 

“It’s, um. Jack Benson. I was told to come here?” 

“Oh, yes. Come in.” Jamie pushes the door open. It opens to an office that looks like a remnant of things Jamie’s only ever seen in books–old wood and dark rugs and rich, warm-looking fabric everywhere. There’s a man sitting at the huge desk in the center of the room, dressed in the sharp dark suits of an Executive. 

He gets up when Jack walks in. “Jack!” He says, loud and excited. “Nice to meet you. I’m Mercer.” He holds out his hand. Jack takes it. Shakes. His palm is sweaty, but Jack’s would be. An Executive knows his name. 

Mercer shakes his hand firmly, then gestures to a chair across from the desk, upholstered in emerald leather. “Please, sit down.” 

Jack sits. Poison? No. They wouldn’t. Too messy. And they’d want to know everything he knows, first. 

“So, you’ve been here almost a year now, right?” Mercer asks. Jack nods. 

“Nine months and six days.” 

“Accuracy, good. That’s a good trait for a young up and comer to have,” Mercer grins, jovial and cold. He looks at his computer screen. “How’s it been?” 

“Um, I mean. Well. It’s the Home Office, isn’t it? It’s, like. Where it happens.” Mercer is watching him with cool blue eyes. Jack ducks his gaze.

“Good, I’m glad you’re enjoying it. You’re lucky, you know.” Mercer gets up, wanders to the window. Jamie wonders what he sees out there, if he sees all the destruction the Company’s caused. If he sees the people who will rise up and drag him from this tower. Jamie could push him, he thinks. He could push him out the window right now, and the world would be better for it. “Not everyone gets to work at the Home Office. You get to see the glory of the Company up close here. See all the good we bring to the world, when it works efficiently.” 

Jack nods, and his fists don’t clench, and he doesn’t push anyone. Mercer steps away from the window, surveys him. “How would you like to help the Company?” he asks, smiling. 

“I, um. Isn’t that why I’m here?” 

“It is,” Mercer agrees. “You work under Manager Kelsin, don’t you?” he asks, and, oh. This isn’t about Jamie. This is about the Company eating itself from within. 

“Yes. Why?” Jack asks. “Am I being transferred?” 

“No,” Mercer shakes his head, looking at Jamie and seeing big and seeing slow and seeing stupid and seeing tool to be used. “No, I just have a job for you.” 

* * *

Jack leaves Mercer’s office, if it even is Mercer’s office. It probably isn’t, if he sent the request through Kelsin. He goes downstairs. He doesn’t look outside. He just keeps walking, until he opens the door and–

“Jamie?” Tyler says, and then he’s there, next to Jamie, the door closing. “Holy shit, Jamie, what happened?” 

“I–” Jamie shakes his head. He’s back. He’s here, Tyler’s here. Jamie’s here. He’s not in that office with the man with the dead eyes. They didn’t know. He’s not gone. “I–” 

“Jamie? Come on, shit. Here.” Jamie’s on the bed. Tyler’s next to him. He’s warm next to Jamie, tugging him close. His hands run over Jamiee’s arms, warming him up that way too. “Sit down, I–” Jamie falls foward into Tyler, buries his face in his neck, and he can feel Tyler start. He’s here. He’s safe. Jamie can’t breathe, or he’s breathing too fast, he doesn’t know, he–he’s not dead. He’s not disappeared. “Here, there you go, good, babe. Shit, I don’t know–are you–what happened?” Jamie’s only half listening to Tyler’s babble, but then Tyler’s hands are on his cheeks, lifting his head. “What happened?” he asks again. 

Tyler’s face is all Jamie can see. Tyler, and his brown eyes frantic and a little wild and the warm strength of his hands and the downward curve of his lips. “You’re here,” Jamie gets out. “I thought–maybe–” 

“I’m here, I’m sorry I was late, it won’t happen again,” Tyler promises, his thumbs sweeping over Jamie’s face. “Everything’s fine. I promise, no one’s hurt, not out there.” Jamie takes a long, shuddering breath. Thinks of Mercer, and the way he’d talked about the Company and what happened to inefficiencies. 

“You’re sure?” he demands. “There wasn’t–they didn’t–” 

“No, they just changed the guard schedule, we had to find a new hole–hey, no, don’t start again!” Tyler yelps, when Jamie falls forward and starts shaking again, this time mostly in relief, and the fear that still sits in him, low in his belly like it never had before. “No, Jamie, babe, don’t worry, it’s all fine I promise–” then there are lips brushing against Jamie’s forehead, his temple, and, “You’re fine, I won’t let anything happen, I will drag you out of here myself if I have to–” and lips on his cheeks now, as Tyler eases his head back up, “Whatever happened we’ll figure it out, okay, babe? It’ll be–” And then Jamie tilts his face up and he doesn’t know if Tyler meant it or not, but their lips meet. 

Tyler makes a noise like someone’s punched him in thee stomach, but it feels–it feels like living again, Jamie thinks, and kisses him harder. Tyler’s frozen for a second–but then he tugs and he’s on his back Jamie’s over him and Tyler’s kissing him back like he needs this more than air, more than breathing. Jamie does need it more than, air, needs the feel of Tyler against him and the coursing fire in his blood and just–needs to know Tyler’s here, with him. 

“Hey, hey.” Tyler’s hands run through Jamie’s hair, twist in it just enough that he can pull Jamie back. He looks good like this, messy and well-kissed, like so many of Jamie’s old dreams. “Not that I am not down for this, because I am, I have wanted this for–I am so down, but. Are you okay?” he asks, and looks at Jamie, not through him, and his eyes are sparkling and alive. 

“No,” Jamie admits, like it’s pulled from him. “No, I–I thought I was going to–I thought they caught me.” 

He can feel Tyler go tense beneath him. “Did–” 

“They didn’t, I–an Executive wants to use me.” Jamie takes a breath, then another. “I don’t know–it’s this place, I’m fucking losing myself, I don’t get this–if I forget, if I don’t know who I am–” 

“You’re Jamie fucking Benn,” Tyler interrupts. He rolls, so Jamie’s on his back and Tyler can sit up over his thighs. “You’re a beast in a fight and you don’t back down and you carry the rest of us through or die trying..” He reaches out, traces the line of Jamie’s collarbone. It’s soft. His gaze is somehow soft too, as determined as it is. “You’re a brother and a son and a captain and a friend.” Tylers swallows now, but he soldiers on. “And you’re the man I’ve wanted to do that to for years, now.”

Jamie’s hands tighten on Tyler’s thighs, reflexive. Tyler’s start does not seem all bad. “Yeah?” he asks. 

Tyler’s hand tuns over his hair, pushes it off his forehead. “Yeah,” Tyler agrees. “Benny, you’ve got to know, I–” 

His watch beeps. He swears, and rolls off of Jamie. “Fuck, I’ve got to go, I–” he looks back at Jamie, something wild back in his eyes. “Are you–” 

Jamie sits up too. Looks at Tyler, lips still red, whose hands he can still feel the ghosts of on him. “You’ve got to go,” Jamie says, and goes to get the disc. 

Their fingers brush when he hands it over. It feels the same and like everything, all at once. 

“I–” Tyler shakes his head, then grabs Jamie’s shirt, tugs him in close to kiss him again, hard, before he lets him go. “Next time,” he promises. “A few weeks. I’ll be back.” 

“Yeah,” Jamie agrees softly, trying to memorize this moment. To have something to carry with him, when he goes back onto the floor, when he becomes nothing again. When he starts in on the politics he’s been pulled into. 

The politics. The game. Now that he can breathe again, he thinks of Mercer again, looking at Jamie like he’s nothing, like he’s a tool to be used. Like he’d get sloppy around him, because he was big and he was slow and he was stupid, and the Company was not. 

“Hey, Ty.” Tyler stops in the windowsill. All in black, he’s blending into the night, but his face is bright and Jamie can feel himself standing straight, his shoulders rolling back. The pit in his stomach is still there, but– “We’ve got them, now. We’re going to win.” 

Tyler’s smile flashes, bright as the stars. “Damn right we are,” he agrees. 

“And I’ll be home,” Jamie adds.

Tyler’s smile, if anything, brightens. “I’ll be waiting,” he says, all of his heart in the words, and then he’s gone. 

Jamie watches the window. Then he sits down, and gets to work. 

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on tumblr at [ fanforthefics!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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